Trend Watch: This must be New Rave!!!

When I heard about it 4 months ago from a London friend, I asked innocently “What next rave would that be?” New Rave or Nu Rave seems to be a street culture movement born in the UK last year, and its momentum has now spilled over to the rest of Europe and the US. However, recently we got to feel its noisy presence in Tokyo, too. But as with all street culture, it is short-lived and nearly over when the hype finally catches up. Look for example at the London Olympics Logo that hectically aims to be so much of a New Rave. Poor British citizens that have to live with this spot until 2012…PingMag wanted to inspect this so-called New Rave, resulting with us all dressed in neon colours in the office, hyper energetically gesturing and talking with a lot of exclamation marks lately! And arg! All this bloody make-up! You should see us…

Written by Chiemi
Party photos by Billa
Translated by Natsumi Yamane
With kind cooperation of Craig Ford

Every street culture movement is given a name by someone or other. Often it is the media that desperately tries to find a term for something inexplicable, thus creating the trend by themselves. That is why New Rave, which originally emerged from musical backgrounds, was named by the undeniably British music magazine, NME. As you might already have expected, the name is a spoof of the popular 80’s “New Wave” music, but literally meaning New Rave at the same time.

Klaxons from good old Nottingham is THE New Rave flagship band and numerous media have been hailing them as The Next Big Thing. This would make us look forward very much to their visit to Japan this summer – if we only were into them so much. But being a truly global phenomena, we also count other New Rave bands in, such as the British New Young Pony Club, Glasgow’s SHITDOSCO, Brazil’s CSS and Germany’s DIGITALISM.

As for the sound – it might be best described as 80’s influenced Electro Rock or Disco Punk, and its connection with Electroclash that triggered a massive boom in the early 2000s can’t be ignored either. However when compared with Electroclash, New Rave is characterised by its stronger tendency towards rock music.

Incidentally in response to the recent New Rave craze, a current British attitude seems to consider bands to be cooler than DJs. Rumour has it that a steady stream of kids are ditching turntables for guitars, but at the moment we don’t have any hard evidence for that yet…

We know it hurts the eye but flamboyant fashion in fluorescent colours is one of the essential elements of New Rave. As usual, some journalists already predicted the arrival of fluorescent colours in town last year, and obviously their forecast wasn’t all that far off. As you might spotted on your city’s streets, pink and yellow fluorescent colours popularised by the New Ravers are spilling over into major brands!

Not surprisingly, the street wear movement caught the haute couture’s attention: So, for this 2007 autumn/winter collection, cosmic-patterned dresses and jumpers were presented by Jeremy Scott. He happens not only to be Madonna’s costume designer, but also released a 12″ full of Electroclash for the New Yorker label A Touch Of Class. Even Martin Margiela famous for his graceful style has announced capes and shoes in fluorescent colours.

In the meantime, the London street wear label Cassette Playa is worth making a note, as its design and use of colours are unmistakably New Rave. Though you can buy Cassette Playa’s lines since 2 years at Harajuku’s Laforet, they have been so popular recently that it’s almost impossible to get on of their clothes without reservation. At any rate, it’s definitely worth taking a glimpse, so better check out their dazzling collection at their website or on My Space.

New Rave was not only responsible for pouring the idea of “fluorescence” into the world of fashion, this trend also invoked some strange visual phenomena in recent music videos. For example, look at this bizarre sequence in the previously mentioned Klaxons’ clip Magick: There is fluorescent green fluid spurting out of the band members’ eyes. Okay, this is obviously a citation of 70′s and 80′s horror flicks of the gruesome kind. But still, it so New Rave to turn the spurting blood into something fluorescent green… and it really manages to look disturbing enough!

We will report more on this special video of director Saam, who also did New Young Pony Club’s “Ice Cream”. Of course, soon on PingMag. Don’t miss it!

Now, some of you might be wondering if there are any places that happily engage in New Rave in Tokyo. If you are a cool Tokyoite, don’t worry – as every possible trend on earth, it surely exists here, too!

Vanity is a massively popular, irregularly held venue fusing music and fashion. Major bands on tour to Japan often make secret appearances at these parties, and New Ravers are now beginning to show up here from time to time. Furthermore, Vanity’s organiser Paul James is also the Vivians band leader, as part of the Rallye/Klee label. By incident or not, Klaxons used to belong there too, before they made their major debut at Universal Japan. If you are a Japanese New Raver, check it out!

The cool kids in Tokyo hang at “Vanity.”

Tokyo-based The Vivians

Paparazzi! A “New Rave” girl walking in front of Laforet in Harajuku.

Also, this year’s Summer Sonic festival in Tokyo and Osaka on the 11th and the 12th August will host a bunch of New Rave bands, including Klaxons, CSS, SHITDISCO and Digitalism – all performing on the same stage. A rare opportunity for New Ravers in Japan, so don’t miss on that one!

…So, are you a New Raver or are you anti? Please drop us a line and keep us posted about updates on that subject! Thanks!!!

Aaah my eyes!
The concept is cool, but I don’t think I will ever want to wear neon colored clothing ever again. (after a traumatizing experience)

http://nixfuryincy.c nix

somekind of trend? love it..but its juz too much 4 me…

http://graftag.blogspot.com niq

Whoa. This is like an extreme version of “hipster”. I like it.

freethan

Oh come on… Not another revival to hit the streets Recycling oldies and in my opinion taste-less trends

This is so 80′s it’s out of date for the 2nd time. Where is the originality, I heard someone cry

May

Wow… there’s so many bright colors I feel like I’m in the 80s again! The music video kind of creeps me out.

I was just wondering if someone can tell me if they receive my email with my application in it or if there’s a way to get in contact with Verena please. Any help would be more then greatly appreciated!

hi, now there is also a container site about new rave culture, check it out>

nurave.blogspot.com

John

The best part about New Rave is that it doesn’t exist. It’s a fake genre and culture the klaxons helped form.

Chuck F

John – Entirely Wrong. Klaxons got famous at the start of this year. Chicks on speed have been championing this image for years and years(at least 3)

You can trace consisttly New Rave trendsetters in (if you wish I’ll even go find you party pictures from parties a year ago)Japan close to bit more then a year ago, with a few questionable types of is this 80′s revival or new rave before that. Sex, a store in Tokyo that specilizes in New Rave has been open since the end of last year.

I personally think if you go and look at Harajuku fashion maybe 8-9 years back you have a much more intresting fashion that looks almost excatly like New Rave and that orginated in Japan, but oh well.

Actually, what should have been mentioned (and was only once in the comments so far) is the influence of hip-hop. Browse through any rap magazine or listen to hiphop/rap from any time and the past few years and thats where a lot of this is coming from. Big, synthy beats, and the associated fashion (bright colors, over the top gear -see mainstream companies like LRG) have been a part of (current) hip hop fashion since at least the first Neptunes tracks, and the period around 2001-2002 when down South shit took over. Currently the hyphy movement from the Bay area in hiphop exemplifies this. As for London, see MIA, Lady Sovereign and Diplo (not from London) who obviously owe a massive debt to hip hop (and other music). For Montreal, where I am, see the likes of Ghislain Poirer and co.

Like usual hipsters picked up on this and cross overs occured in both fashion and music. Dont forget hiphop has always had a strong “throwback” tradition – ie most of these flamboyant “80′s” styles originated in hiphop culture back then – eg. graffitti influences etc. – and in are still paid homage in rap today. And with the usual tendency for hipsters to go extreme with something, you get “New Rave” – which is really just the marriage of skinny jeans to throwback sneakers (Air Force 1′s/ AirJordans anybody?) and bold colors.

http://www.autodanz.com ZG Colocho

It’s recycable fashion…who would’ve thought Spike Lee’s fashion trend would revive once again. While I personally love it (it beats having to wear boring, lifeless clothes), it is what it is: a trend. The agency I work at developed a video for Scion Puerto Rico, which has the New Rave element to it. Check it: http://www.autodanz.com

LMAO Trend. It isn’t a trend ~ It’s a way of life. And I am proud to say I never go out without wearing a million colors.

Anonymous

bloody amazing!!!

emilyy

wow!!!

???

New Rave? This is Post-Hipster.

MCFLY

YES YES NEW RAVE!!!!

ULTRA PAX!

MARTY MCFLY

YES YES NEW RAVE!!!!

ULTRA PAX!

Putna

New Rave! <3

http://www.ravehistory.co.uk www.ravehistory.co.uk

hmmmm not my bag

Aeore

Wasn’t the 80′s called “The Fashion Disaster”??? Then why to go back to that??
Nothing like the rave fashion from last millenium (End of Millenium Style, from 1997 and on), which was based on cybernetic subjects and technology. That was cool and encouraging. But these people is just recycling the same stuff from late 80′s… Nothing new, nothing cool. Even though there are things that can be rescued by balanced designers, which can be used on new clothing designs, all of it looks old and out of date. I agree with previous comments that there’s no second chance for that freaking 80′s style… To much Baroque for me.

Aeore

Oops, by the way, I mean End of Millenium taking for instance Schiller style.

to everyone who says that new rave is made up, who the hell cares? What exactly does a trend have to do, be authorized in some arbitrary minds who don’t like to distinguish themselves from everyone else? I could give a shit what its called, or who thinks its real or not, its me. Every other fashion or any trend has been “created” at some point anyways.

http://www.myspace.com/busterbennettlondon BUSTER BENNETT

This is really bad journalism, so many of the facts are wrong, the time line and everything!

Those pictures are quite extreme-the kids are generally more subdued in their daily fashions where Nu rave is concerened…

having said that-us english are faddy, and alas-nu rave is old news

x

manchester lauren

too all those peeps arguing about the origin etc of fashions (ie nu rave) get over it-there is no new fashion…it’s all just a re-hash of somthing old (with a new twist)…

nu rave is fun, so who cares

x

vimags

Hey there, I came across your site, saw the very nice photos of the new rave fashion and thought of featuring rave in this new site that we will launch in mid-March. I work at an ad agency and i’m handling a brand for women of class AB aged 20-39. We’re focusing on food, travel and fashion and think that rave is the new fashion today. Aside from featuring this page, we’re also asking for your permission to allow us to use 2-3 of your photos. We can send you a copy of the article for your approval. Please let us know what you think and we’re really excited to place you on our site. Thank you!

hey man i really like the nu rave style it’s cool and more of a self expression than fashion and i think the reason it lost its momentum was becuase topshop began to rip it off and make it mainstream, i can really relate and feel comfortable in it. I think it’s fine if people dont wanna dress in neon n shizz but dont talk it down, thats pretty insolent safe pingmag (y)

I love dressing Nu-rave… but like fuck do i listen to their music that much… At the end of the day. No one can beat REAL RAVE and the reason it ALL began in 1988!!!
To be honest. i dont like how Nu-Ravers totally ripped off that throwback style and coined it to some kids who listen to synthy Rock music. LAAAAME!
Cannot. I repeat. Cannot beat the real thing

The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.

http://calculatebmiforwomen.blogspot.com/ Calculate BMI For Women

I like this web blog very much, Its a really nice position to read and find information.

Check out our Cyber Monday deals on everything from cell phones with service to no-contract phones, unlocked phones, Bluetooth headsets, cases, chargers, and more

http://islamic.solusina.com/ islam menjawab

is good….greeting!

http://bestbuyfromcheapprice.com/ CybermondaySaleUSA

It’s very nice.

http://www.panatweb.com Movies and TV Series

wat a nice post

http://www.partaji.com Partaji.com – share the info …

Partaji Admin

http://solusina.com/ toko jasa

wow… is cool….

http://www.yoogly.net reza atayee fard

Do you have a very good site

http://travel-trips.cu.cc/ Travel Trips

Travel Trips has been succesfully catering to travellers across the globe with its well established and secured Global Hotel Reservation System. Our 24X7 customer care support is there all along to help people with their hotel reservations, cancellations and other related issues. Featured are some interesting testimonials from our valued customers vouching for the credibility of Travel Trips.

Your business sounds very interesting. It is great to have businesses that can contribute to so much to our society these days.

http://www.hallohi.net HalloHi Social Network

HalloHi is Social Network service . You can write what ever you want you have your space on this site and you can do whatever you want share music , videos , write blogs , read blogs , ask question , answer question , play games , upload documents , do

http://majalahkredit.com/ kredit mobil

I read a very interesting article on this website, really adds to the knowledge of positive

I like it and thanks for sharing this great source. its being my favorite.I like this web blog very much, Its a really nice position to read and find information.Cool site bro, nice post and keep sharing, thanks.

Axon IT is a one stop business solution for the corporates and individuals. In Axon IT a person can find web design solution as well as multimedia solution. We know the present need of the corporate and individuals. Our experts are always ready to do their jobs in the shortest possible time at a cheaper rate.

http://www.1tradezone.my tradezone.my marketplace

The advertising for 200 days.

http://www.ajwasweets.com sweets

A Massive Thank you so much, I thought that your article was

http://www.benimlezayifla.com zayifla

Thank you. O like this post. I would like to share at my facebook account.

If you are seeking a well-seasoned group of veteran painting and decorating professionals in the London area, your search is finally over when you discover the greatness of DecorCraft Services. With over 50% of our customers coming from the good works they tell others about, the clean and expert atmosphere that our professional crew of painting and decorating professionals will bring is phenomenal. We are respectful and complete every assignment that we are given in the most accurate and timeliest of fashions, and take into account the budget that you may have set for the project.